Lady Killer!

Recently Macie has given up on being agreeable about wearing weather appropriate clothing. She says she is tired of winter clothes (aren't we all?) and just wants summer so she can wear "pretty" clothes. So mornings at our house are a bit tense because I'm not patient when it comes to arguements about wearing skirts and tank tops in the 16 degree weather.

One morning we had a particularly bad arguement and Macie ended up wearing something not "pretty" and was very sad about it, and I was mad about starting the morning off so badly.

We piled into the car to get everyone to school and Cole decided to help, even though I'm not sure he completely understood the reasons for the argument. I got in the car in time to hear Cole saying this to Macie......"Macie, if you want the boys to be all over you, you have to choose to be cute. Just look at me, I chose to be handsome and the girls are ALL OVER ME!!

Cole is extremely modest and humble, and all that ;). Earlier this year I overheard him telling Macie again how all the girls in the neighborhood and his class love him but he thinks it's because he dresses "cool." He was sitting at the counter on a bar stool and said "it's no wonder all the girls love me, just look at this shirt." He was wearing a t-shirt that said Rock On (not that exciting but evidently it drives the girls crazy!!)

New Year, New Knee?

This picture shows the bruising, this is pre-surgery

This is post surgery, obviously, and shows the 21 staples, pain pump and drain, and all the doctor's doodles on his knee!

Justin wanted to document Dr. Kimball's sewing skills. The drain is sewn in nice and tight!

So it's a well known fact that Justin has a few broken body parts, past and present :) Well, last month he was bringing in the garbage can from the curb when he hit a patch of ice and slipped just enough to fall and dislocate his knee. He is no stranger to this either. The first time he dislocated it he was on his mission and since then it has happened a number of times. He has even had surgery on it twice before. Evidently he has genetically screwed up knees and he says we can thank his dad for that, so Thanks Dennis!!

This time the fall broke off a little fragment of his knee cap and tore a few other things, all of which I don't know how to pronounce. We took a fun trip to the ER, at night of course because why would anything ever happen during the day on a weekday?!?! They told us it's bad news and that we need to get into the orthopedic specialist. Not surprising. The surprising part.....our new insurance was not accepted by our ortho guy that we loved. Thankfully we found Dr. Kimball who accepts our insurance and could get Justin in for surgery fast.

On February 18th, two weeks after his ice capades stunt, Justin had knee surgury. And let me just say that this was no minor surgery. The doctor shaved off bone, smoothed out knicks, razored off cartilage, re-aligned Justin's knee cap and there is even a screw in there (for good measure or something?!?!) Justin is successfully becoming the bionic man, one limb at a time :) He is recovering now. It is a slow and very NOT FUN process. Everything seems to be healing correctly and we have been told that this surgery should fix the problem until Justin needs a total knee replacement when we're old fogies (is that how you spell that?!?).

Needless to say, Justin has successfully gotten out of garbage duty for the rest of his life!!

The Big 5!!!

Macie, Ellie, Claire, Avery, Shelby and Emma

Macie celebrated her 5th birthday on the 13th. Macie woke up to a little pile of presents which she opened like a pro. We had a quick breakfast of Justin's specialty, wheat pancakes, which are a big hit at our house. We cruised to Cole's last basketball game of the season then cruised home just in time for Macie's princess party. Macie usually gets nice spring weather for her birthday but not this year. It was a total blizzard! But we didn't let that dampen our spirits :)

We invited Macie's friends for lunch (pizza and grapes at Macie's request), a wild rendition of the animal game (where Cole ended the game as a tree, which was tricky because we were guessing animals since it is the "animal" game and all), cupcakes, making a bracelet and a treasure hunt. Cole was a great helper and was known as "grape boy" because it was his job to bring the grapes when there was a request for more. The princesses were super cute and most of the bracelets turned out cute too. Justin and I were a little challenged when it came to getting the knot to stay so Claire, Avery and Macie had to make theirs twice!

We ended the birthday celebration with dinner, cake and ice cream. Just the 4 of us. Then we all danced around to Macie's Birthday Mix CD that Justin made for her. When I say all, I mean Cole, Macie and I danced. Justin hasn't done much dancing in the past few weeks for obvious reasons!! Her favorites are "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (yes, by Def Leppard) and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Go Gators!!

Cole's team: Jared, Cole, Carlos, Mason, Coach Monroy, Alan, Tommy, Dallin and Isaiah

Basketball season was great this year. Cole had a great team and a great coach. The kids looked like they really got it this year. It has been fun to see the progress over the years. Two years ago basketball was great fun with little or no idea what was going on and what you were supposed to be doing. It was complete mayhem and very fun to be a spectator. This year the kids understood offense and defense and were pretty good at playing as a team rather than just being ball hogs :). There was a little more strategy which made it very exciting. I also will admit to becoming a little more competitive myself. I was surprised by how mad I got at the other team's players, coaches, refs, etc when I thought things were unfair or just plain wrong! These are 1st and 2nd graders here. I'm worried because I think it will only get worse!